Mobile communication devices, such as cellular phones, have become prevalent in everyday life. The use of such devices for messaging (e.g., text messages (e.g., short message service (SMS), enhanced message service (EMS)), multimedia messages (e.g., multimedia messaging service (MMS)), instant messages, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) messages, etc.) is ever increasing. Some users have unlimited messaging plans, whereby such users are allowed to send or receive an unlimited number of messages over a billing period for a specified fee. However, other users have limited messaging plans, whereby such users pay a certain fee for a specified number of messages per billing period and pay an additional fee per message for each message over the specified number of messages. Still other users have no messaging plan, whereby such users pay a specified fee for each message sent or received during the billing period.
Messaging using communication devices has increased in popularity in recent years. Sometimes, when a message (e.g., SMS message) is sent from an originating communication device to a target communication device, the target user associated with the target communication device can prefer that the message be forwarded to another communication device, which can be associated with the target user or another user for which the target user desires to forward the message. However, conventionally, the technologies for forwarding messages, such as SMS messages, remain relatively primitive, and most message forwarding functions are only implemented on the communication device and not in the network. One drawback with only employing message forwarding functions on the communication device is that such message forwarding functions do not work when the communication device is turned off.
One network-based SMS message forwarding technology uses a Home Location Registrar (HLR) proxy to intercept an SMS message to verify whether the message needs to be forwarded to another communication device. However, this network-based SMS message forwarding technology limits itself to an unconditional forwarding mode which means that if the target user elects to forward an SMS message to another communication device, the SMS message will be forwarded immediately, even if the originating user that sent the SMS message does not desire to have the message forwarded and/or the other user to which the message was forwarded does not desire to receive the message being forwarded. Such unconditional forwarding of SMS messages can result in potentially sensitive information in the SMS message being forwarded to another user, even if the originating user only desires the target user to be able to view the message and does not desire other persons, like the other user, to receive and view the message, and/or can result in the recipient of the forwarded message incurring the cost of receiving the forwarded message even if the recipient does not desire to receive the forwarded message. Accordingly, today, there is no way to desirably control forwarding of messages to communication devices.
The above-described deficiencies of today's messaging systems are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.